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That seemed a long tea-time, and it appeared to be longer still before I could get away, for Mr Solomon had a lot of things to ask me about the grape-house and pit. I kept glancing at the wall where the key hung on a nail, and though another time I might easily have taken it, on this particular occasion it seemed as if I could not get near the place unobserved.
As the squire was walking on the terrace Hopkins came up to him, and touching his hat, remarked that they should have frost in a day or two. "I suppose we shall," said the squire. "We must have the mason to the flues of that little grape-house, sir, before I can do any good with a fire there." "Which grape-house?" said the squire, crossly. "Why, the grape-house in the other garden, sir.
True enough they were, for I had entered a large pinery where fruits were ripening and others coming on in the most beautiful manner, while what struck me most was the perfection and neatness of all the place. Then I found myself in another grape-house where the vines bore oval white grapes, with a label to tell that they were Muscats.
It ought to have been done last year by rights." This Hopkins said to punish his master for being cross to him. On that matter of the flues of Mrs Dale's grape-house he had, with much consideration, spared his master during the last winter, and he felt that this ought to be remembered now. "I can't put any fire in it, not to do any real good, till something's done. That's sure."
And we were so delighted with what the architects, and landscape-gardeners, and mosquito doctors had done to make it habitable; with the house itself, and the grape-house, and greenhouses, and gardens, and pergolas, and marble columns from Athens, and terraces, and in-and-out door tennis-courts, and swimming-pools, and boat-houses, and golf links, and all the other country-place necessities, and particularly with a line of the most comfortable lounging-chairs and divans in the world, that we decided to spend the winter there.
Henceforth, let my readers, whenever they enjoy their muscatels out of the grape-house at home, or sip Moscada Toscana in Italy, or Muscat in La Vallais, give a kindly thought to that much-tried but never downcast monarch.
And presently, when the gardener emerged from the grape-house, I sought of him all the particulars he had gathered. "I don't know very much, sir," was the man's reply. "I went into the inn for a glass of beer at eleven, as I always do, and heard them talking about it. A young man was murdered last night up in Rannoch Wood.
He treated me like a grown-up person, and after we had inspected the lawns and borders, and looked at the ripening bunches in the grape-house, I felt myself half-way to become mistress of the place. It never occurred to me that my plans might fall through.
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